If it rides good and is stable now and also you haven't encountered a spot where "you could have made it if you had a whole lot more travel", then the gains vs the extra cost, headache, and time modifying brackets and whatnot are probably not worth it. BUT...if you were to snap your fingers and your rig magically appeared with properly tuned air shocks on all 4 corners in the travel you specified, you may be really happy with the way it performs. I bought my rig Leaf sprung front with 4 link rear with 2.0 18" Fox Air Shocks. Leaned like ****.....like could have easily flipped it over on flat ground if I tried lol. I took the 18" 2.0's off and put some 16" 2.5's on and it is 10x better! Really happy with the way it does now.
There are so many different tuning factors with air shocks and if you don't understand them inside and out and how tuning this affects that, it can make for one helluva headache. Having air shocks doesn't automatically mean you are cursed with body roll, having IMPROPERLY tuned air shocks means body roll.
*Sweet spot on air shocks is when you have only 4-6" of shaft showing so that should be taken into consideration when predetermining ride height and mounting brackets and tune them around that factor.
*Adding more oil to the shock or even going to a heavier weight (in extreme cases) will increase the shock's ramp rate in turn decreasing body roll.
*Read a lot about valving and what works. If adding oil doesn't solve body roll (if body roll is experienced), then going to a heavier valving ratio may be what fixes the issue.
*Charging with nitrogen only adjust ride height. Like stated before, fill to wherever ride height is perfect that's between 4-6" of shaft showing on level ground.
I also would suggest going with 2.5's, because like someone on here said when I was researching this topic, "There's no replacement for displacement."
The 2.5's on the rear of my truck came off of Brandon Dillon's Ford buggy, below I will post a vid of his buggy and you will def be able to see how stable his rig is on the side of a majorly steep bounty hill. And no, I don't believe he is running any sort of sway bars either. After running the 2.5 air shocks for a while, he went to coilovers, but then again, he's bouncing, not crawling, so I don't blame him.
Brandon Dillon VS the Adventure Off Road Park $10,000 bounty hill
And here are a few good reads on air shocks that I've found useful in understanding a few things about air shocks and some feedback from others during the tuning process.
http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/PR-Airshox/
http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/PR-Airshox/Fox%20Airshox%20Rebuild.pdf
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/general-4x4-discussion/740068-tuning-fox-2-5-air-shocks.html
Also go to poly performance's website for a full parts list of all the internal parts you could possibly need and new valve stacks for tuning. Also this site encases Fox specs that are very important for tuning. You'll find the valving spec chart to see the different diameters of the each valve of both the compression and rebound valve stack if you decide to revalve. And you will find the factory volume of oil that comes stock in each size air shocks so you will be able to properly measure when adding/subtracting oil.
http://www.polyperformance.com/shop/Fox-2.5-Air-Shocks-p-182.html#.UmdZ05wo74g
You don't have to buy new, post up in the wanted section and keep an eye out on the classifieds for someone going from 2.5 airs to coilovers, eventually you'll find a deal. I personally wouldn't waste my time with 2.0's. Although I never tried to tune my 2.0's, I just didn't want to waste time and frustration tuning a lighter duty shock because of how bad my body roll was. So I bought the 2.5's with my fingers crossed and the intent of tuning them best as possible if they didn't work, but I got lucky and they fixed my problem. I'm sure Pirate has a ton more info than just the few links I posted. So keep searching until you find enough info to where you feel you know what to expect when swapping to air shocks. One thing that was hard for me to settle on was the fact that you can't precalculate or predict **** with air shocks. You may buy some and it take no tuning and work like a charm....or it could be a nightmare the way mine was when I bought it. It's simply trial and error with tuning. If you have the time to mess around with them, then you surely should be able to tune them to where you are happy with them.
Good luck!
Never knew he had it in him. :****:
